


In the World between Worlds the soundtrack is Queen

by Padawan_Writer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, Multi, Nanny Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, Reylo - Freeform, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Song: Bohemian Rhapsody, Songfic, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, The World Between Worlds (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padawan_Writer/pseuds/Padawan_Writer
Summary: You prowl through the dark alleys of AO3, the forbidden delights of black market material calling you."Psst!” I whisper from the shadows.“What’ve you got for me?” You growl.I smile slyly, open my briefcase and pull out a black dossier. “It’s a Good Omens-Star Wars crossover. A Fix-It no less.” I lower my voice to chant, “Ben Solo deserved better.”You bow and repeat our Chant. “So. What’s the deal?”“When fictional characters die, they wake up in our universe, in Aziraphale‘s bookshop. But Ben only wants to get back to Rey.”You suck in a breath. “Like it.“Aaand it’s a song fic.”“Really.”“Couldn’t resist. Not when Good Omens is basically one long Ineffable song fic.” I hum ‘Somebody to Love’.“Fair. The song?”“The best vintage. The Bohemian Rhapsody.”You whistle appreciatively. You have good taste, or perhaps you like Queen because you have been in the Good Omens fandom for more than two weeks.“You in? You’ll leave kudos at the third alternative rendezvous... perhaps a comment? You know how precious they are.” I’m keeping cool beneath my dark glasses, trying not to reveal my addicts need.You narrow your eyes and decide…
Relationships: Aziraphale & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens) & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley (Good Omens) & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18





	In the World between Worlds the soundtrack is Queen

**Author's Note:**

> I crack a grin when you take my offered dossier. You check the legal note at the front that says: “Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics to the Bohemian Rhapsody. I have not reproduced them in full, according to the laws of AO3. All rights etc go to Queen. P.S. I think the note links should work as links, fingers crossed. It was a hell of a lot of html to write.” You snap it shut and slide it into your own briefcase. Then, cat-like, you are gone, off to a corner of a late night café or perhaps to your own unmade bed high in a skyscraper where you open your fic and begin…

Ben drifted through the black nothingness of space and time. There were no thoughts. Only Self, wrapped in the warm web of the Force like it had been in the womb of his mother. 

_Is this the real life?_

Stars, or perhaps they were souls, sparkled in galaxies across his field of vision. He reached for them, but now there was something else, music, tugging at him.

_Is this just fantasy?_

It pulled him back from that world of the dead. He could feel his body, every nerve and muscle.

_Caught in a landslide,_

Other sensations now. With his mind he wrenched to go back to that warm other place, but it was gone again forever. Inside he cried for it, like a baby just out of the womb.

_no escape from reality._

He drew a breath and smelled hearth fire and old books and dust and something sweet. He was laying on something hard. His mind tried to grasp at something, anything, but slid off like water sliding off—whatever it is water slides off of.

_Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see…_

Ben opened his eyes and tried to make sense of what he saw. A blur. Eventually it resolved itself into a domed ceiling.

“Crowley, must you play Queen to them every time?” Came a quiet, anxious voice from nearby. It didn’t alarm Ben, and he lay perfectly still, staring at the ceiling in quiet and utter bewilderment. (1)

_I’m just a poor boy, (poor boy), I need no sympathy._

Sympathy, sympathy. He had needed it, he remembered now. Luke trying to kill him in his sleep… was that what had happened? Had he died then?

There was a defensive whine from someone else. “Well… what if it’s Freddie Mercury one day?”

“It doesn’t work like that, you know it doesn’t. Freddie Mercury isn’t fictional,” said the first voice decisively.

_Because I’m easy come, easy go,_  
_Little high, little low,_

“Aw angel, you don’t have to go and spoil it like that! You never know. One day he might. Live in hope, hey?”

_Anyway the wind blows_  
_Doesn’t really matter to me…_  
_To me._

No, he hadn’t been killed by Luke, because other things had happened after. So much hurry, so much anger, and all the voices whispering to him all the time.

The one called Angel spoke again. “Were you… _very_ good friends with Freddie?”

“The best.”

“I’m sorry, Crowley.”

The whine came again. “Why do humans have to die? You make friends and then, boom, gone. Dead. And _don’t_ say ineffable again or I promise I will _strangle_ you.”

“I think I would like that. But—you do have me, Crowley, you know that.”

“I know angel.”

_Mama, just killed a man._

Oh… Han Solo. What had he done? His mother would be devastated.

_Put a gun against his head,_  
_Pulled my trigger, now he’s dead._  
_Mama, life had just begun,_  
_But now I’ve gone and thrown it all away._

But he’d turned back to the light, hadn’t he? With all his life before him. But then he’d gone and given it to… “Rey!” He cried aloud, and started at the sound of his own voice. (2)

The two voices shushed each other though the music continued to play softly in the background.

“Good evening, my dear. How are you feeling? I hope it wasn’t too painful,” the angel voice said.

With a mammoth effort, Ben rolled onto his side on the floorboards. Two humanoids were sitting on an old sofa with their arms around each other, the gangly one dressed in carefully sloppy black, the fluffy one in shabby neat white. Both were looking at him with mild interest. Quiet piano music mixed with the voice of Freddie Mercury.

“Where am I?” He asked.

The fluffy prim one answered. “This is A. Z. Fell & Co. Bookshop, London Soho, England, Earth. My name is Aziraphale. I am an angel. This is my wily wicked demon, uh—“

“Partner—“ suggested the gangly one,

“—Partner, Crowley. Welcome to the in-between world, my dear.”

“I don’t understand,” Ben said.

“No, no, of course not. But it’ll all become clear in time.”

_Too late, my time has come,_

Ben scrambled into a sitting position, his body aching all over. He was sitting in a faintly glowing circle of silver lines. “I am Kylo Ren. No—no, I’m Ben Solo. Ben.”

“From Star Wars, right?” Crowley asked.

“What’s Star Wars? I’m from the First Order. Except I left them. I’m a Skywalker.”  
(3)

“Yeah, Star Wars alright. Are you a villain, or are you a hero?” Asked Crowley.

Aziraphale tutted. “Crowley, you of all people should know it’s not that cut and dried. I’m an angel, you’re a demon, you’re the good person, I’m the bastard. What kind of a question is that, ‘are you a villain’?”

“Weeell angel, it’s Star Wars. Black and white. Dark side of the Force, bad, Light side, good? Oh, you’re probably right. Heaven and Hell all over again. But we have to divide labour somehow. So. Villain or hero, my boy?”

_Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth._

Ben pondered this. His whole life had revolved around this question, and he’d always believed he knew the answer. But now… “I don’t know.”

_I don’t wanna die, I sometimes wish I’d never been born at all…_

“I don’t want to die,” he said.

“Well that’s alright, because luckily for you you’re not exactly dead,” said Crowley.

“This is Earth, the in-between place where fictional characters come when they die,” Aziraphale explained.

“But I’m not fictional?” Said Ben.

Crowley stretched his long long legs out. “You are in this world, mate. They got stories and films about you. It’s _ineffable._ So,” he slapped his angel’s knee, “are you mostly good or are you a baaad boy? Not that it matters here really, you’re not going to be sent to Heaven or Hell if we have anything to say about it, but we’ve got to divide the labour somehow between angel and me.”

“Angel and I,” Aziraphale corrected.

“No, I’m sure it’s angel and me. Because you wouldn’t say ‘between I’ now would you angel?”

“But ‘between me’ doesn’t make sense either. But my dear, I thought you said you didn’t read books.”

“Weeeeeelll, you know how it is,” said Crowley expansively and evasively. “We’ll look it up afterwards, all right?” (4)

“Who are you?” Ben asked. “Am I dreaming? You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.”

_Scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?_

“You’re not dreaming, you’re sort of dead,” Aziraphale said patiently.

“And we said who we were. I’m Crowley and this is Aziraphale. Now we don’t want to be at this all night—“ 

“—So could you be so kind as to give us a brief account of yourself and your deeds? Skipping birth and early life and just the interesting bits. For the records,” Aziraphale finished.

Ben sighed. “I’m so confused. But alright. I was a Padawan of the light with my Uncle until he tried to kill me in my sleep one night.”

“Now why would he do that?” Crowley asked.

Ben noticed that a small box with a screen had switched itself on and was showing up words as he spoke them. (5) “He was afraid of my power. So I destroyed the Academy, at least I think I did, I’m not sure how it happened, and I ran away to a person I trusted at the time, my mentor Snoke.”

_He’s just a poor boy from a poor family,_  
_Spare him his life from this monstrosity._

“He taught me the arts of the Dark Side. I did horrible things for the Dark Side. I killed my own father.”

Aziraphale pouted and Crowley grimaced and sucked a breath in through his teeth.

“But one day it went too far. So I destroyed him. He wanted me to kill Rey.”

“Who’s Rey? Oh my dear boy…” Aziraphale trailed off as Ben hid his head in his hands.

“She was the Light. She was my… my alter ego. We were a dyad in the Force. We were two that were one. We could have achieved amazing things together, our powers were beyond anything the Force had ever created before. But she was Light and I was Dark and we were perfectly matched in strength, and I couldn’t persuade her to join me.”

Aziraphale and Crowley snuggled even closer together, clasping hands. Crowley laid his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Ooh, that must have been a wrench,” he said.

“We fought each other up and down the entire Galaxy.”

_Bismillah! We will not let you go! Let him go!_

“I built an Empire. It wasn’t all bad. It gave jobs to thousands of people. It built infrastructures and helped rebuild everything that was destroyed in the war. It settled the political chaos, all sorts of things. But it destroyed things too. And she wouldn’t rule it with me. But it turned out I was a piece in a bigger game. The old Emperor wanted to return to rule the Galaxy again, and he was using us to do it.”

_No no no no no no no!_  
_Oh mama mia mama mia mama mia let me go,_

“It was my mother in the end who persuaded me to turn back to the light. I joined Rey. It was perfect and good and powerful. Together we faced down the Emperor.”

_Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me,_

“Oh that Emperor? Thingamajig Palpatine? Yeeeess, I remember him, watched the movie when it came out. Well well well, what a surprise.” Crowley said. “Spectacular showdown?”

“We fought his army, we fought my friends, we fought him, we fought everyone. But it was too late. He threw me down a shaft. By the strength of the Jedi she destroyed him… but she was killed.”

“Oh no,” said Aziraphale, sounding personally affronted by this turn of events.

_So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye!_  
_So you think you can love me and leave me to die!_

“It should have been me, after everything I did. So I transferred my Life Force into her so she lives and now I’m—here. And if I’m not dead then I need to go back and fix everything and help her and oh fuck just be with her again love her and build things with her and just… she’s my soulmate, I’ve got to…”

_Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here!_

Aziraphale and Crowley wore two different expressions of utter devastation. “It’s a cruel world Ben. It’s a cruel world.” Crowley said.

“Oh, my dear. So you want to go back?” Aziraphale asked.

“Yes! Send me back. Please, please send me back to her. For the love of the Force,” Ben pleaded.

“We don’t often send people back, Ben.” Crowley said.

“Humans aren’t meant to be immortal, they can’t cope with it. I don’t know why She made it that way, but humans are for letting go and passing on. It’s extremely painful and often unkind to undo the process. In fiction, there’s a generally a reason for death, especially for villains.” Aziraphale fussed.

_Ooh yeah, ooh yeah_

“Aw come on angel, don’t be a spoil sport, it’s true love! You can’t just get in the way of true love, can you?”

“Ah yes, but is it? We’ve only heard _his side._ ” Aziraphale gestured with his hands for emphasis, palms out, and raised his eyebrows at his enemy who was so obviously nothing of the sort.

“Ngk.” 

_Anyone can see, nothing really matters…_

“We’ll give it twenty-four hours. Time for reflection, and—and re _search._ So we can be sure it isn’t all a big mistake.”

Crowley shrugged. “Sounds fair. Movie marathon, angel?”

Aziraphale rubbed his hands together with a pleased smile. “I do hope it’s not too _loud._ ” (6)

“You fell asleep last time. There’s novelisations, I believe, and graphic novels too. Anyway, you going to take care of him shall I? Redemption arc and all that?”

Aziraphale turned his motherly attention back to Ben. “Do you like cocoa or coffee, my dear boy, or what do you prefer?”

“Actually… I like caf. Coffee? My mom had a droid who used to narrate the entire process of making a cup of caf like he was on a cooking show to anyone who would listen.” Ben chuckled, but clammed up when he realised how much he had said. But no one had actually ever asked for his preference before. Everyone had—everyone had just made him drink what was “good for him” until he’d been able to order people to give him what he preferred. And who had ever wanted to listen to stories of his life? He mustn’t let the angel lull him into a false sense of security like Snoke had.

“You’re safe here. Safest place in the world, right here,” Crowley said as if she’d read his mind, and when Ben looked at him Crowley had changed. There was nothing specific Ben could have said had changed, but Crowley was most definitely female. Or maybe she had been female all along?

Aziraphale heaved himself out of the depths of the sofa. “Do you like toast?”

“Yes, please toast. I’m hungry.” Ben said.

Aziraphale bustled away into the little back kitchen. Crowley unfolded herself from the sofa and stretched black feathery wings that she’d surely not had before. She approached Ben where he sat on the floor in the glowing circle until she towered over him, and stretched out a hand to him. (7)

Ben took her hand and stood up, finding that he was on eye level with her even with his great height.

“You’re safe here, dearie,” she said, her accent changed a little, “safe and loved. We’ll be your family. Most people choose to stay. We offer a chance to start over. You can make a wonderful new life for yourself here, the humans are so clever and marvellous and really they do make such wonderful things. It’s peaceful and it’s ever so fun. There’s no shame in staying. Like angel said, it’s moving on. Keeping up with the times.”

It was tempting. Safe and loved. 

But Ben could only think of Rey’s smile, the way she called him by his real name, the feel of their minds coming together like a hand in a glove, and the taste of her lips on his.

“A demon’s temptation, hm. I must resist. For her.”

“We’ll see how you feel in the morning. Come to bed now.” Crowley extended her wing and laid it around Ben, guiding him to a small staircase at the back of the shop, embracing him with her wing while keeping her long hands stuck lazily in the pockets of her jeans.

She showed him into a small bedroom in the eaves, and the angel came with coffee and honeyed toast and ministered unto him. (8)

The next morning he woke to find his clothes washed and clean and breakfast cooling gently on the table. He spent the day perusing the books in the shop, the words and characters different from his own tongue but somehow perfectly understandable. 

He planned what he would do when he got back. The Resistance had destroyed the First Order’s military power, but with any luck the infrastructure and the bureaucratic chain of command would still be in place. He could use it to reestablish peace and transform its methods and goals into ones of peace and mercy, with a democratic command. Or perhaps it was better to let each world rule itself, since a Republic was so huge that if even one million people needed something, their voices would be lost in the hundreds of billions that clamoured for the Republic’s attention. That was partly why every attempt to build a fair Republic had failed over and over.

It hurt less to think about politics than about Rey.

“She mussst be quite a woman, that Rey, am ah right?” Ben jumped. Crowley was lounging on his back on the top of the bookshelf, one skinny-jeaned leg swinging gently off the side.

“The whole bookshop’s practically pinging with love!” Aziraphale beamed, popping up from behind a shelf with his arms full of books.

“Well I did put on _Crazy little thing called love,_ angel.” Freddie Mercury was indeed rocking it out on the speakers at low volume.

“Really, Crowley. My dear boy… is she _very_ nice?”

Ben considered. “Not at all. She’s the most aggressive person I know, and she’s so damn stubborn.”

“Sounds like quite the bitch,” Crowley drawled.

 _“Crowley!”_ Aziraphale said in his most shocked voice. Crowley grinned, teasing his angel.

Ben watched them together and was hit by a wave of longing and pure need to be with Rey again. Building a life together. In her arms, fixing all the broken things. Here he couldn’t even feel her presence in the Force like he’d been able to do ever since they’d met, and it was like he’d lost his eyes and where vision should have been there was nothing. Nothing at all. And his consciousness constantly strained to see something there, her, and was met with nothing.

It must be the same for Rey.

A dyad was not lightly sheared in half.

“Right. I suppose you ought to be getting back then.” Crowley said. (9)

Ben snapped the book shut non too gently, and flinched under a withering look from Aziraphale, the like of which even his mother had never given him. He reached for the Force to retaliate, and found nothing. He reached for an angry retort and didn’t find that either. Humbled, he placed the book gently on the shelf exactly where he had found it.

Aziraphale nodded approvingly. He switched the shop sign to Closed, pulled back the rug to reveal the silver circle and placed candles all around the edge. Crowley glared at the candles until they grudgingly lit themselves.

“Good bye my dear, it’s been simply lovely having you. Now for some angelic advice. I suppose I should tell you to be good and kind and you do that, but what I really want you to know is… life’s too short to feel guilty about things. Move on and do better next time.” Aziraphale shook Ben’s hand in both of his.

“And look after Rey, and remember…” Crowley thought for a moment about what advice he should give to the young leader from his own extensive experience as a demon. “Don’t swim for an hour after eating. S’not worth it. Makes you queasy.”

“Now step into the circle my dear,” Aziraphale said. Ben stood in the middle of the circle, careful of the candles.

“This is going to hurt,” the demon grinned, pulling out a long silver knife from a pocket that was too small to hold anything of the sort. Ben looked at it in alarm, but Crowley didn’t bring it anywhere near him, only dragged the tip along the floorboards around the rim of the circle. 

Ben had the strange feeling of being in an elevator that was going too fast. “Thank you ever—”

Aziraphale made a violent pulling-down motion. Bright white light beat down, a massive tearing sound, and he was falling. Falling through space and time and blackness.

It felt like he was falling for hours. His head ached from pressure and his stomach sickened from the forces pulling at his organs. Had the angel and demon made a mistake and doomed him to this falling hell forever? Perhaps he had been tricked. He panicked, and crashed landed on something soft.

He blacked out.

“Ben! _Ben!_ ” A voice, her voice, shook him. Her Force presence probed at his. (10)

He came to with a gasp, wrenching air into his lungs. A darkened room, curled on a bed, nose bleeding, body aching all over. And her, bending over him in shock and alarm.

“What the _fuck,_ Ben! Is this real?” Rey cried, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Speak to me!”

Ben braced himself to speak. The pain made him suspect a broken rib. “They sent me back. For you. The angel and the demon sent me back.” He reached out and grabbed her hand. “Don’t leave me.”

“I’m not going to leave you Ben. It’s been a _year!_ Why didn’t you come back sooner if you could?”

Ben could feel her emotions in a riot, anger coming out as a way of trying to get control of the situation. “A year? It’s been less than twenty four hours—I’m so sorry Rey—“

“I _missed_ you! Oh Ben…” She scrambled onto the bed next to him.

“Careful, it hurts. I think I broke a rib.” Ben gasped.

“Oh baby. Can I heal it?” Rey rested her hand gently on his chest, summoning her Life Force, but Ben grabbed her hand away.

“No Rey. You only have so much Life Force. Don’t waste it on something that can be healed with bacta.” He held onto her hand, interlacing his fingers with hers. She stroked his cheek with her other hand, touching every part of his face, his eyelids, his lips, his jaw, hardly able to believe he was real. She looked deep into his near-black eyes, remembering all the times she’d looked into them before. Curiosity, fear, surprise in their first meeting. Ferocity and respect all those times they’d duelled. Alliance and love were what she loved best in them. She released his hand and gently placed her arm around his shoulder, hugging him closer to her. He put his arm around her waist.

“I’m never letting you go again,” she whispered, her warm breath ghosting on his cheek. Unable to wait any longer, she leaned in and gently brushed her lips on his. She’d dreamed every night of their parting of doing this: holding him, kissing him again, even just one more time. He rubbed his hand up and down her side. They could feel with their sixth sense their dyad healing and knitting together again.

He pressed his mouth to hers, closing his eyes, letting the warmth of it flood his body. He was home.

——————————————————

(1) *peeks at you over my dark glasses* Crowley is playing the song over surround sound speakers that he forgot to plug in (but they work perfectly anyway). I hope my client is enjoying themselves? By the way here's a YouTube link to a lyric video if you want to listen to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axAtWjn3MfI&list=RDMMaxAtWjn3MfI&start_radio=1 Back

(2) Rey’s friends do have a bad habit of shouting her name a lot, don’t they?Back

(3) Let’s just take a moment here to contemplate the fact that characters in Star Wars don’t know they’re in Star Wars.Back

(4)*saunters in with a huge dictionary that I’m flipping through. The dictionary is for show. Actually had text my dad about it earlier* Crowley is actually right here: “angel and me” is grammatically correct. Let’s not tell Aziraphale though.Back

(5) However long ago Star Wars takes place, Aziraphale will always be further behind. This is not Siri or Alexa taking down Ben’s words, it’s a miracled stone-age computer. Crowley miracled it: in the past Aziraphale made him write these kind of stories down short-hand in a journal, until Crowley told him that computers did that kind of thing for you nowadays.Back

(6) Aziraphale finds all the _pew pew_ objectionable to his ears. He watched the originals with Crowley when they first came out. His favourite character is C3PO, with whom he strongly identifies.Back

(7) It is worth mentioning at this point that Crowley is not and has never used their female form to seduce anyone. The first and only time they tried a spot of demonic seducing came out like “You can come and say at my place… if you like?” And because it worked a treat they never felt the need to try it again on anyone else. They do however have a soft spot for children and hurt people and often use their female form for the benefit of the recipient to give a bit of motherly care.Back

(8) According to the Bible, Aziraphale has done a lot of this kind of ministering.Back

(9) *passive aggressive screaming* I HOPE YOU’RE TAKING NOTES, JJBack

(10) _Squeeeee! We’re getting to the best bit!_ Sorry, I’ll stop interrupting you now.Back

**Author's Note:**

> I come to the third alternative rendezvous, the bandstand, two days after our meeting. I grind my teeth, hoping against hope. It is dusk. I lift up the loose paving stone and extract the Kudos Box Safe from its hiding place. Have you left a precious heart here? With shaking hands I take the key from the inside pocket of my trench coat and unlock the box…


End file.
